Hi,

At present I'm running a Pentium II 450MHZ machine with a Geforce 2 Titanium card and a Voodoo 2 card.

I use the Voodoo card for RB3D, but would dearly like FSAA.

However I don't wish to dispense with my GF 2 Ti card to replace it with a Voodoo 5 AGP card, as this will affect playability in other D3D applications I like to use.

How well does the PCI card compare with the AGP card, is there any significant performance hit?

Has anyone on this forum got any experience of running a Voodoo 5 PCI card alongside another AGP card i.e. Nvidia or ATI?

Andy

Quote:

Has anyone on this forum got any experience of running a Voodoo 5 PCI card alongside another AGP card i.e. Nvidia or ATI?

Not personally, but there is like a 2% difference between the two (someone correct me if I'm wrong). So if you're looking for the FSAA and other voodoo features, then go for the PCI version. For your main card, I'd say you upgrade and get yourself a Radeon 9500pro if you're not looking to spen too much money. I got myself one, and it works just fine. I really like the low performance hit when using AA and AF. Unlike my voodoo5  ;)

There shouldn't be much of a performance difference between the PCI and AGP cards due to the fact that the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP only runs in AGP 1x, which is the equivalent of PCI mode (66mhz).

Yep, although I've heard 2 Opinions about it :

Opinion 1 :
The 66MHz AGP Bus at least allows for double/quad (2x AGP) the Speed when it comes to loading Textures and issuing Commands to the Card.

Opinion 2 :
While running even at the AGP Speeds, the actual Bus commands are using PCI Protocols, and are only handed over at standard 33MHz.

Both I can't confirm or deny, but in the end, it is known that the AGP Variant was usually only a few % faster (if at all).

Hello Everyone,

I stumbled upon this site researching this very subject. I purchased a V5pci because I really don't want to downgrade the MB and CPU to accommodate the AGP slot for my V5agp.

I have a ton of old sims and games that shine on the V5 and its time to have it back in my system. I had the very same question about the PCI version. So if anyone is interested, check out the links below for a pretty extensive comparison between the PCI and AGP version of the V5.


http://firingsquad.com/hardware/v55500pci/
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1292


Good Day,  

The Sims (all of them) are a strict CPU game.

I can make it *shine* on a 1mb Cirrus Logic 5446 :)

wrote on 03.05.04 at 07:24:35:

Hello Everyone, I stumbled upon this site researching this very subject. I purchased a V5pci because I really don't want to downgrade the MB and CPU to accommodate the AGP slot for my V5agp. I have a ton of old sims and games that shine on the V5 and its time to have it back in my system. I had the very same question about the PCI version. So if anyone is interested, check out the links below for a pretty extensive comparison between the PCI and AGP version of the V5. http://firingsquad.com/hardware/v55500pci/ http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1292 Good Day,

It sounds like you've already made up your mind, and that you don't want the hassle of downgrading for the sake of AGP.

I mean it's only a 2% increase difference? Is that really worth all the hassle?  ::)

I'd say go with the PCI for your situation.  It's quick and easy, and will work along the current set-up you have.  :)

'Nuff said. 8)

wrote on 26.06.03 at 14:53:05:

I'd say you upgrade and get yourself a Radeon 9500pro if you're not looking to spen too much money. I got myself one, and it works just fine.

Isn't that the best ATI card to get at present in terms of the performance:value for money, ratio?

My mate said it was possible to upgrade/modify the card through the BIOS (I'm almost sure he said it was through the BIOS) and flash it to a 9700 Pro.

Therefore you buy the cheap value of a 9500 and get the performance of a 9700.


EDIT: Does the 9500 support 2/4x (AGP 2.0) Motherboards? I may be on the lookout for one!  ::)

Ney, the 9500 non pro (early versions of it) came with 256bit memory, and could be easily softmodded to a 9700pro.

EDIT
The 9500 is 4x/8x, thus will support 4x cheapsets ;)

What I meant by "old sims" was Falcon4, TAW, Janes F18, EECH, EAW etc. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for the replies.